Prince's Sisters Angry After Master Tapes Moved From Minnesota Vault to California

According to the Associated Press, Sharon and Norrine Nelson, Prince's half-sisters, have threatened legal action against Comerica Bank & Trust, the administrator of the Prince estate, unless the recordings are returned to Minnesota.

The move to Iron Mountain gained a vote of support from Dave Hampton, who's previously been technical director at Paisley Park and with Hancock Music in Los Angeles.

The vault, located in Paisley Park, housed Prince's most obsessed-over assets: a trove of unheard music, some of which dates back to his commercial peak in the '80s. Canoe.com reported that Sharon Nelson had been told by a "Paisley Park representative" that four trucks had arrived in early September and emptied the vault.

"It's just as though Prince passed away again", Sharon said. "I was really devastated by that".

The collection, which includes master tapes of around 30 unpublished albums completed by the late star, who died in April 2016 aged 57 after an accidental overdose of painkillers, is reportedly worth around $200 million.

Comerica are required to give Prince's heirs 14 business days notice before making transactions worth more than $2 million and the sisters argue that this should have applied to their act of moving the vault's contents.

Prince's six recognized heirs - his sister Tyka and his five half-siblings - have essentially divided into two camps that have been frequently at odds with one another over how the estate should be administered. "On four separate occasions, Comerica discussed the process with the heirs and any suggestion otherwise is not accurate". They pointed out that Prince's studios at Paisley Park remain state-of-the art.

"After reviewing the storage conditions at Paisley Park and out of concern regarding the consequences of a fire or other loss at the facility, Comerica determined that it was necessary to transfer the audio and visual content to a secure location where all of the original content could be securely stored and digitized as a safeguard against the destruction or loss of any original content".